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The Surprisingly Exciting World of HTML Elements

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about HTML — interesting HTML elements, things you might not know, wish lists for the future, and more!

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Show Notes

02:34 - What is semantic HTML?

  • What is the content? HTML should describe the content first and foremost.

04:04 - Why semantic HTML?

  • Accessibility
  • SEO
  • Styling is easier
  • HTML tags that have meaning:
    • Almost all of them
    • Common ones:

        • /
            and
          3. to

    20:04 - Structural / Layout tags

      • You can have more than one header
      • Header cannot be in a footer / address / header

    26:18 - Some fun ones you might not know

    • /
    • and strike?
    • / /
      • A ruby annotation is a small extra text, attached to the main text to indicate the pronunciation or meaning of the corresponding characters.
    • and
      • While is used to convey how much work in a task has been completed, the element is used to display a measurement on a known scale. This could be something like the current disk usage on your computer, or a temperature measurement (within a defined range).

    32:12 - Visual vs Semantic tags

    • Almost all tags in HTML are semantic
    • vs and vs
      • and are NOT deprecated like many have said
      • The element is for content that is of greater importance, while the element is used to draw attention to text without indicating that it’s more important.

    35:40 - HTML tags with no meaning:

    37:51 - Some elements have special functionality or styling

    • and tag
    • +

    40:59 - What elements would we like to see?

    • Modal element
    • Textarea that grows with content
    • Animated accordion
    • A better table
      • One that works with grid/flex/modern CSS, auto-sizing, max/min widths
    • From Twitter:
      • VirtualList
      • Carousel - HOT DRAMA
      • Date range
      • Hero
      • tag that figured its level out by itself. Useful for components that can go anywhere
      • Icon tag
      • Cookie banner
      • tag that shows HTML elements without encoding
        • You can kinda do this with display block on script and style tags
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